Modern society has developed a wide range of useful appliances and devices. One (1) area that has seen rapid growth of such appliances and devices is food preparation. Cutters, choppers, blenders, juicers, bread machines, can openers, waffle makers, salad makers, electric knives, salad forks and countless other devices and appliances have been developed to make cooking faster, easier, and more enjoyable.
Among the modern food preparation conveniences that have been developed in recent years is the very popular and widely used microwave oven. Today, few homes and even fewer restaurants and commercial kitchens do not have at least one (1) microwave oven. Microwave ovens are used to thaw foods, reheat leftovers, heat beverages, cook prepared meals, make popcorn and for numerous other tasks. Because of their speed and convenience microwave ovens are particularly helpful in coping with today's fast-paced lifestyles.
The microwave oven has been rapidly evolved into a variety of low cost, efficient, relatively compact appliances. Many households and lunchrooms have found that one (1) microwave is insufficient. Some foods require cooking, others require warming, and yet others may require defrosting. Since a microwave can only operate at one setting at a time some users are forced to wait until one (1) food is done before the other is started. This means that the food that was initially warmed or cooked is growing cold. Such problems are compounded in company lunchrooms where many employees may all want to use the microwave oven at the same time. While more microwave ovens can be added, space is often at a premium and the resulting cost and aesthetics of multiple microwave ovens can be unwanted.
Accordingly, there exists a need for microwave ovens which can prepare various foodstuffs and beverages simultaneously. Preferably such microwave ovens would take up less space than multiple microwave ovens, would cost less than multiple microwave ovens, and would have improved aesthetics over multiple microwave ovens. Even more preferably such microwave ovens would enable a single controller to control two (2) or more microwave cavities. In practice having a vertically-orientated beverage microwave cavity would be useful. Ideally such a microwave oven would be easy to use, incorporate easily-operated switches such as push-button, momentary contact, and touch screens. In practice user feedback displays in the form of LED's (light-emitting diodes), LCD (liquid crystal displays), plasma displays, CRT (cathode ray tube) displays, fluorescent displays, and analog displays would be useful.